


Lost and Lonely Traveler

by UrmanGottlieb (Dr_Hermann_Gottlieb)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Star Trek
Genre: Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Post canon, Star Trek AU, Vulcan au, but it's just species confusion, mentions of anorexia, you don't need to know anything about star trek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Hermann_Gottlieb/pseuds/UrmanGottlieb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann is not exactly human, which certainly explains wearing sub-zero parkas in seventy degree weather. But now that he’s not as vital, he has to decide what he’s going to do about his fraudulent identity. A drunken Newt disagrees with his choice</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Lonely Traveler

**Author's Note:**

> I promise, if you've never even heard of Star Trek it's still readable. If you are vaguely familiar, Hermann is the same kind of alien as Spock, but as the events of this fic are 200 years before the original series the Vulcans are much more imperious, violent, and insular (unbelievable as it sounds) as well as more prone to emotion, though still valuing logic. Also, Vulcans can't get drunk off alcohol; instead, chocolate will do the trick. Vulcan translations either in fic or end notes.

>   
> _Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for._ \--Dag Hammarskjold

After the rift is closed, Hermann allows himself only a few moments of celebration before retreating to his quarters. He does not accept any of the mugs of unidentified alcohol offered his way as he goes; they are better left to those better suited to celebration than he. He is not comfortable with the proximity of so many people and their emotions. He can generally shield himself from such displays, but with little warning the only option available to him at the moment is to flee. It is a completely logical response, he assures himself as he arrives at his assigned accommodations. 

He finds himself unsettled and off balance after fighting through the crowd. Not only can he feel his own conflicting emotions of loss, relief, and exhilaration attempting to surface, but the exuberance of everyone around him seems almost suffocating. He wants to do something to settle himself, perhaps meditate, but he doubts the anxious energy running through him will be particularly conducive to diligent thought of any form. Besides, he had always struggled with meditation in ideal situations, but without the proper incense burning in the proper brazier while wearing the proper robe he knows it will be impossible, but he's yet to find a suitable combination of herbs to replace those he used as a child and the robe is always far too cold as apparel.

Still, he is here now and cannot return to the raucous celebration and maintain his sanity. He takes a few breaths and sits on the floor, doing his best to make the correct position despite his almost immediate leg pain, but try as he might, he simply can't focus. His mind seems to continually slip away onto a variety of concerns, thoughts, and memories. With a deep sigh, Hermann stands and extinguishes the incense, as it clearly is not helping and he does not wish to waste or draw attention to what little of his contraband stock he has. He isn't surprised that this is not working, as he hasn't even tried to do this since the last time he had to. (Even though it was years ago, he regrets not being able to send Sasha and Aleksis a congratulatory message. It was the only kill he had failed to applaud them on, and he knew it had affected Aleksis personally. Even Hermann's gift of homemade Saures Lüngerl and the most heartfelt apology Hermann had ever successfully mustered had not seemed to assuage the bear of a man. Had it not been completely necessary, had the only alternative not been his own death or, potentially, worse, he would have been there to greet his two friends that day, but he could hardly explain why he hadn't been in LOCCENT for the fight or on the dorm floor when they returned. The regret had never diminished, not in the years that had passed, and knowing that he now could never make it up to the man was almost inconceivable.)

He shakes himself from thoughts of his Russian friends and sits again, but his mind begins wandering even faster this time. Perhaps, then, it's best to focus on something practical and attempt to reach a logical conclusion, even if his thoughts themselves cannot reach the logical consistency he might prefer. (He rarely achieves this state, anyway, so there is little use in trying.)

The question arises, then, as to what issue he ought to consider. Clearly, his most direct concern for the past decade has become moot, so analysis of that issue would be somewhat futile. Perhaps, then, his consideration ought to focus upon what his future would hold. Clearly, he can not go back from whence he came; all ties had been cut both metaphorically and psychically over a decade ago. Even if they do not believe him dead, it is beyond his capabilities to return and he would likely face repercussions for his...less than legal acquisition of his vehicle if he just arrived home now. Further, he has absolutely no desire to return to his life of mediocrity at best and failure at worst. No, he certainly belonged were he was now and everyone where he came from was better off for his absence.

Of course, on the topic of returning home, he ought to pay a visit to all of the Gottlieb family. He hasn't managed to visit any of them for some time, and Lars has been increasingly distant and hostile for some time. Even Karla, the kindest by far of the family, has been terse and flippant when he attempts to contact her. He is certainly overdue for a visit.

Does he want to do that, though? For over a decade, he has lied to and manipulated an entire family. And yes, they're only humans, they don't matter, they are less than him, but he has lived as one of them for years, come to respect a number of them and even care for a select few. Just because none of the Gottliebs fell into either of those groups does not give him the right to casually dismiss their freedom to their own memories.

On the other hand, if he does nothing, their original memories will surface. They will remember Hermann Gottlieb as he was: a sickly child who died very young. Questions would be asked that would grow extremely uncomfortable very quickly, principally who pretended to be Hermann, and how did he convince an entire family that he was a member. Further, a variety of professors might start to remember that he had not attended any kind of university despite their own records. No, without the proper maintenance he simply could not continue his life as Hermann Gottlieb.

Still, was being Hermann particularly important? He likely would end up back at the same university as before, completely alone and quickly growing bored releasing “advanced” mathematical concepts he learned as a child in paper after paper. He had been challenged by the difficulties of analyzing a true wormhole, of cataloguing a phenomenon never before observed. Nothing on Earth could distract him so well and so long as the rift had, not even the meager data retrieved from the anteverse could occupy him for long. He would have to search for something to occupy himself, but that thing was certainly not in academia.

It might not even be so bad, that life of boring, crusty complacency, if he could have something in the way of company. Here, he has an assortment of acquaintances, a variety of peers that he felt comfortable conversing with on an assortment of topics extending slightly past the impending crisis. Here, he had once had friends, true friends, of the kind he had not known possible before knowing them, friends with whom he shared more bottles of contraband vodka and homemade German dishes than could be counted. Here, he even had Newton, arguably the most stimulating person he had encountered in his fifteen or so years upon this planet. Newton was far more complex than an acquaintance or academic rival, though in contrast to the Kaidanovskys, he was clearly not as simple as a friend. Perhaps if he can find a way to remain near Newton in the foreseeable future it would be worthwhile to remain as he is now, but that seems unlikely. No, Hermann Gottlieb seems doomed to a boring, lonely life stuffed into some university perpetually, constantly violating several different humans’ rights to their own memories. 

When asked once if this was a fair life, one he could live willingly with no regret, he would have responded firmly with an affirmative. Now, though, he feels that his mediocre life prospects do not justify psychic manipulation of a multitude of living, breathing people that deserve respect, even if they were inferior. (Assuming they were inferior, that is, something he’d been questioning as of late. Could his people have banded together as these humans did? Could they have repelled these leviathans? Even with their psychic capabilities, would they have had the ingenuity to develop the drift?)

So, there is his answer. He can not justify his continued existence as Hermann Gottlieb, so he must become something new once again. The issue is now how to go about this. Before, a lifetime ago and only a few years back, he only needed to press a button on a pod and find a way to disconnect his psionic links to family and betrothed. Hermann would not so easily be hidden as Starak was, as Hermann could not simply leave the planet of his birth. He halts this train of thought for further inspection.

Does he consider Earth to be home, now? His mental dialogue referred to it as the “planet of his birth,” an extreme inaccuracy, except perhaps as a metaphor for his rebirth into Hermann or as a reference to the human that died ten years before his arrival who he selected as his identity.Is that what he meant? He curses his mental disorganization, as he cannot be sure if either of these possibilities are accurate. Earth is not his provenience, merely his residence. This is an extremely important distinction that must be remembered, just as it is important to remember that humans cannot be suitable bondmates.

Wait. _What?_ Why, in the infinite capabilities of thought, would he select that particular analogy. Is there a human that he, like this planet, has come to think of as home? _Who?_ He steadies himself and disconnects this thought process. It is non-productive, distracting, and, above all else, completely impossible.

He needs to erase himself as Hermann and restore previous records of the poor child whose identity he assumed. To do that, he will need to work quickly, efficiently, and anonymously. He needs his PPDC terminal in the lab. Best to pack several essentials in a small bag, erase his identity as soon as possible, and leave the dome entirely before anyone notices his absence. It may spark some public interest, but he is capable of the _kahs-won_ : there is nothing he cannot do on this planet much weaker than his native one. Besides, if he can effectively remove his presence from the internet, there will not be much in the way of an image for the public to identify. He'll be more than fine. 

He stands, ready to enact his plan while everyone here is drunk and no one outside knows what's happened. He packs the bag of personal items that has followed him from 'Dome to 'Dome, complete with five changes of clothes, a spare pair of shoes and his few sticks of incense. He debates his parka fit a moment. It is highly practical, considering the terran climate in relation to where he came from, but it is relatively distinguishing. Still, green parkas are common enough. He dons with a familiar gesture. (He does not keep it out of sentimentality. The Kaidonovskys’ gift is practical.)

In possession of everything he intends to take with him, he debates what to do with the remainder of his things. His small stovetop, his collection of “homemade” German recipes, his contraband vodka, his holopad: all will be useless to him and cannot be taken. The question is, should they be destroyed? He hesitates, but only snaps his pad and pours one bottle of his vodka over the remains and leaves the rest intact in his room. All the better to make it look like he left willingly and delay the man hunt.

He walks briskly to the lab, dodging the stumbling and jubilous men and women around him. A few attempt to interact with him, perhaps to ask him what the bag and parka could be for, but his urgency discourages any true conversation or curiosity. He arrives back at the gaping metal door that leads into the lab and pauses. After years of entering this room and a dozen just like it, this will be the last time he enters to the smell of chalk dust and ammonia. He shakes off the sentimentality once again. He seems to have spent enough time with these humans to begin to resemble them emotionally.

He drops the bag on the floor next to his primary terminal and sets to work erasing the last decade and a half of his existence. He starts with altering hospital records back to their original status and restoring the death certificate he destroyed, officially restoring the correct life of Hermann Gottlieb. The next step is to erase his education history, both in terms of his degrees and employment. Bank accounts and social media are next, destroyed as easily as tissue paper. This takes less than twenty minutes. 

Next, he designs and runs a comprehensive search for his name and face in every non-localized server, destroying all evidence of himself in a way that no human would entirely know how to. Perhaps he is overstepping his grounds, but this cannot merely be a superficial removal. This is a wholehearted gutting of his entire existence in such a way as to convince anyone that did not know him that he did not so much as exist, much less contribute to the cancellation of the apocalypse.

His program is only just over halfway through its search of the entirety of the internet when he feels a hand land clumsily on his shoulder. Suddenly, he is aware of the stench of blood, ammonia, kaiju entrails, dirt, and alcohol that can only herald one man.

“Dude, you got to take at least one night off. We saved the whole world today,” Newton declares as he forces Hermann’s chair to turn from the computer, leaning quite heavily onto the chair and into Hermann’s personal space. “What are you even doing? I was joking about the whole ‘fixing your predictive model’ thing earlier. You do know what a joke is, right? I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you even try to tell one, much less laugh at someone else’s. Though, Sasha always did say you were fun to have around when they got really drunk. Of course, It’s hard to trust any of what Sasha says when she’s discussing getting drunk. She also says that you can drink their vodka like water and be totally sober, so I think she’s full of shit sometimes. Was full of shit. Weird.”

Hermann is unimpressed by Newton’s rambling, especially as it’s made it’s way into a more somber subject that may well result in Newton drunkenly weeping. It would be most difficult to cauterize his existence with a sobbing biologist distracting him. “I believe, Newton, that the better question may be why exactly you are here. I am attempting to work, but you have no such excuse to be here, especially not in this condition.”

“Right! I almost forgot why I was here. Thanks, dude, you always keep me on track. You did that in the drift, too, I could feel it. It was like you steered me away from you and into the hive mind, real weird but cool. I didn’t know that was a thing that you could do in a drift, did you? Have you done that before? Drifted, that is. Not know stuff, clearly you’re pretty good at that. I can only assume you’ve been doing that for a while. What was I saying?” Newton looks befuddled and sways slightly. He likely should not have started drinking so quickly after extensive psychic activities.

“I believe you were about to say why you were here before you fell into a tangent discussing the drift,” Hermann replied, hoping that his response would expedite the encounter.

“Right, right, right. You’re really good at _helping_ me when I _drift_ onto a _tangent_.” Newton snorts, as though he’s made a humorous statement, but it escapes Hermann what the possible intent may be. “Aaaaaaaaand of course you don’t laugh. That one would be really funny if you were in here,” he taps his skull. “I mean, physically, not in terms of the drift. I think it’s funny, is what I mean. Tendo would probably find it funny, too, but maybe not. Hard to say. I’ll ask him later.” Newton suddenly appears much more serious, but the effect is diminished by his continued swaying. “Tendo hasn’t been to see you, yet, has he? I told him I’d talk to you, but he said he would if I didn’t, so you haven’t seen him yet, have you?”

“No, Newton, I have not seen Mr. Choi since I left LOCCENT.” A beep is emitted from the computer, signalling the completion of his search. All that stands between his and Hermann’s separation is a quick deletion of PPDC files and a drunken lab partner. “Why are you here, Newton?”

“Right. Dude, I don’t know how I’d do anything without you.”

“You would simply not drink.”

“Well, yeah, I’m not going to argue with that. I’m generally a lot better at this whole…” Newton looks up, as though trying to focus on something. “Talking! I’m generally better at talking, but I’m reeeeeeally drunk right now. I don’t think I’ve slept in like, two days or eaten for like three, and I’ve had at least a bottle of Kaidonovsky brew so far, but it’s hard to say. I might have had more, since I was trying to see if I could hold it as well as Sasha said you could, but I don’t think--”

“Newton!” Hermann snaps, stopping Newton in yet another tangent, hoping once again to expedite this discourse. “What did you come here to tell me? I _am_ rather busy and would appreciate your haste!”

Newton looks thoroughly chastised and steps back from the chair, making his sway even more pronounced. “Oh. Right, yeah, that’s...yeah, that makes sense. Maybe I should just go. This was a bad idea. Excuse me, I’m going to try to get ahold of some more alcohol to get drunker. More drunk. Whatever.” Newt tries to turn crisply and over balances, starting to fall.

Hermann moves quickly, impulsively, and catches the falling human before his head cracks on the solid steel of the floor. Newton appears to have fallen unconscious while collapsing, as his eyes are now closed. Hermann takes a chance and uses his strength to lift Newton from the ground. Of course, now both of his arms are occupied by the inebriated primate, so he has to walk without his cane to the small couch on the far side of the lab to deposit his lab partner. He grimaces just at the thought of it, but begins limping toward the sofa with his charge. He lays Newton down softly, much more tenderly than the _nirak_ deserves.

Hermann begins walking back to his chair, limping thee whole way and very much regretting his act of good will. He’s almost arrived back to his cane when he hears a gentle, “Hermann?” emitted from the idiot on the couch.

Wishing for his cane, Hermann turns to look back once more at Newton. “What? Why are you here? Out with it; I’m growing tired of playing games. What on Earth is it that you wanted to tell me.”

“I…” Newton drifts off, taking his eyes off of Hermann. After a moment, his attention snaps back and his eyes look much more clear than they had even a second ago. “I can’t tell you right now,” he declares with a small shake of his head. “It’d be a really bad idea when you’re already angry.”

“Fine. I don’t actually care. Tell me if you tire of being dramatic.” Hermann turns back to his chair and after a few limping steps retrieves his cane and takes his seat at his terminal. He accesses his personnel files from the PPDC and swiftly begins deleting them, leaving nothing but the presence of a man named Hermann Gottlieb and his high-level clearance card. These, he sets to erase themselves after twelve hours. He is almost done. Except...he cannot leave until after Newton is dealt with. The man is likely to try to follow him if he sees that Hermann is carrying his personal effects.

“Hermann?”

“Yes, Newton?” Hermann asks, doing his best to suppress his frustration.

“You carried me over here?”

“You certainly didn’t walk over there by yourself.”

He hears Newton sitting up and sliding his feet to the ground. “You caught me and carried me over here?”

“Yes. What is your point?”

“Dude, you are underweight. Like, reeeeally underweight. Like, a had a doctor ask me to make sure you were eating. I told him you were, but either way, you should not have the muscle mass to lift much of anything at that weight, much less _me_. I’m pretty sure I weigh more than you do.”

“I am not unwell, Newton. Clearly, as I was more than capable of carrying you across the room.”

“You do know that’s not the only thing the good doctors around me here are concerned about. Apparently, you’re constantly _extremely_ hypothermic and have, like, rock bottom blood pressure which would kinda make sense with the whole really underweight thing if it weren’t for the fact that your resting heart rate that is literally higher than should be humanly possible, much less of someone that, in theory, is underweight. I don’t mean for this to sound like an attack or whatever, just...you alright, dude?”

What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? “I am perfectly fine, Newton. I am also busy. Couldn’t this have waited until later?”

“No. This is kind of important and I probably should have said something earlier and I am really worried about you. I mean, I guess I can’t make you get help, I’m just saying…”

“Newton!” Hermann spins in his chair to face the sincere looking man. “There is nothing wrong with me physically. I do not have any kind of eating disorder. As you have said, I clearly have the muscle mass of someone in better shape than you and look perfectly healthy. If that was all you wanted, then please take your leave.”

“I...I guess that’s fair. You’re right, you look perfectly healthy and I know you eat.” Newton allows his face to fall into his hands and scrubs vigorously at his face. He stops almost immediately, looks down and makes a disgusted face, presumably at the dirty mess now in his hands. “But that actually wasn’t why I was here. I came here to…”

“By Jove, come out with it already! Why are you here?”

“What did you see in the drift?” Newton asks suddenly, seemingly as a complete non-sequitur. 

Hermann doesn’t respond, confused by the question.

“I...I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but I figured that was why...not that I was prying. Hell, someone else told me about it, but…” he covers his mouth for a second, unsure of how to continue.

“Why are you leaving?”

Hermann gapes, completely shocked by the question. “How...how did you…?”

“Hermann, I might be drunk, but I’m not stupid. Someone told me you had a bag packed and looked like you were leaving, so I went to your room and you’d destroyed your holopad, so I figured I’d check in here and I find out you’re destroying every trace of Hermann Gottlieb you can and don’t look so surprised, dude, I’m not stupid. And I can’t think of any rational reason that you would would do that. And I can only come up with one irrational reason, so I figure you must have seen something in the drift. So I’m sorry for whatever it was, just...please don’t erase yourself from the face of the Earth because of me?”

Hermann just stares, completely confounded. “In the drift? I...no...there was…” He saw nothing from Newton, not even in the slightest. He had never intended to. He would have drifted by himself if he could, so instead he just protected Newton and himself from the kaiju while also shutting Newton out of his own mind, followed the thread from the kaiju, made certain that Newton received the necessary information as well, and then pulled them out. He didn’t have the psychic energy to do all that _and_ start snooping through Newton’s personal thoughts.

Finally, he composed himself enough to form a reply. “I saw nothing from you in the drift. Absolutely nothing.”

Newton looked surprised and concerned, as though considering if his inebriation had contorted the message. “Then why are you leaving?”

“I believe the better question is, what on Earth you think I could have seen that would result in me immediately wiping out all evidence of my existence?”

Newton pauses. “Valid point.” Silence reigns for a moment, neither comfortable with answering the questions at hand. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”

“That’s not a fair trade,” Hermann replies tersely.

“Alright.” Newton scrubs at his face again. “Alright, dude. I’ll answer your question and then I’ll try to explain why you’re leaving and you’ll tell me if I’m right.”

Hermann suppresses a smirk at the thought of Newton guessing correctly. It wouldn’t be anyone’s first guess.

“Okay. Okay. I can’t do this on the other side of the room.” He stands and grabs his own chair as he makes his way to Hermann’s side of the room. His steps are significantly steadier than they had been only a few minutes earlier, but he still appears relieved when he sits back down in his chair, their knees almost touching. “Alright, then. I’m going to preface this by saying, dude, I totally get that this sounds ridiculous, but it’s really true. I, ah...could you stop looking so...stern? It’s a little hard to say what I intend to say when you look like that.”

“You’re stalling,” Hermann chides, but he tries to soften his face.

“Yeah, I am, aren’t I? Okay, it’s like pulling off a band-aid, right? I’ll say it on three. One. Two. “He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as if in preparation for a blow. “I’mtotallyinlovewithyouandhavebeenforafewyearsnow.” 

Oh.Oh, God, that makes a lot of sense. Does it? It seems to. More complex than acquaintance, rival, or friend, as it is elements of all of these and something slightly more than that. How did he miss it? It’s obvious now that it’s been pointed out, absolutely blatantly obvious. This explains a lot of very confused meditations, as well as certain specific difficulties during the last _pon'farr_. This certainly complicates his plans.

Wait, Newton thought that he would not only leave, but blot out all record of his life, because of _that_. Hermann may have a reputation for scorning most overtures of friendship, and this constituted substantially more than that, but there is a difference between rejection and leaving an entire lifetime just to escape someone’s affections. Hermann can’t decide if Newton has the worst self-image in the world or is the most egocentric man in the galaxy. Perhaps both. Either way, Hermann should probably respond, as Newton is steadily looking more anxious in anticipation of some kind of response.

Herman plans out his words carefully, trying to convey as much as he can in a relatively brief statement. “I can assure you that I was unaware of your sentiments prior to this moment. Further, had you said something before I took somewhat extreme action, I might have reconsidered.”

Newton’s face broke into confusion. “Okay, I’m not sure I followed that correctly. I got that you have some kind of...interest and might have wanted to look into it further, but you’re not sure and it doesn’t matter anyway now. How close am I?”

“That’s the summation of it. I do apologize.”

“That’s...don’t apologize, not yet. I mean, I’m sure whatever is making you leave isn’t your fault. How much trouble could a math nerd get into on his own, unless it was for the same reason that you were able to completely erase yourself. You little hacker, you. I know you had a rebellious streak somewhere in there.”

“I fail to see what a technical ability has to do with rebelliousness.”

“All hackers hate authority, and that is a pure statement of fact.”

Hermann sighs. “It is irrelevant. It is done, and in all honesty, I very much doubt that I would have elected any other course of action despite what I just implied.”

“I...see. Well, I don’t, but I doubt I could.”

They lapse into silence.

“So, do I only get one guess?” Newton asks, eventually.

“One guess for what?” Hermann responds, confused by Newton’s continual lack of sequiturs. 

“Why you’re leaving.”

“I...yes. And after that, I really need to leave.”

“Now? But it’s…” he tries to check his watch, but is quickly confused by it’s cracked face. He leans over to check the time on Hermann’s terminal. “It’s three in the morning. You can’t leave this early.”

“I had intended to leave twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh.”

They sit once more in silence, Newton now leaning forward, contemplating Hermann’s face quite intently.

“How long do I have?”

“Good Lord, Newton, could you be more oblique?”

“I mean, how long do I have to put a guess together?”

Hermann wants to say, ‘As long as you like,’ but Newton will take that as permission to stall indefinitely and Hermann needs to leave as soon as possible. “Ten minutes.”

“That’s not very long.”

“I need to leave before word gets out about what happened.”

“That will take longer than until three-ten in the morning."

"You probably should be focusing on your hypothesis, not the time limit."

"I'm drunk and this isn't fair."

"Nine minutes."

Newton lapses into silence, contemplating Hermann intently. Hermann quickly became uncomfortable at the continual attention, shifting uncomfortably. It was futile, anyway. Newton was a reasonable man, and reasonable men didn't believe in "little green men," not even "reasonably sized green men." Still, Hermann wasn't certain if he'd prefer Newton to guess the truth or not. If he knew, he would definitely understand why Hermann had to leave, but Hermann can only imagine that Newton’s reaction to finding out the man he loves is no human will either be horror or scientific curiosity. If he doesn’t, it will all the harder to justify his imminent departure. It’s hard to say which is really worse.

“You’re not human, are you?”

“ _What?_ ” Truly, Newton has a knack for asking startling and seemingly off-topic questions.

“That’s what’s up with your discrepancy between apparent and actual weight, why you’re so goddamn cold, why your heart rate is mostly only healthy for small prey animals, why your ears are so pointy and your eyebrows so weird. For God’s sake, your skin is actually green. So you’ve taken over the life of some dude named Hermann--if he’s dead, I’m hoping he was before you got here--and now you feel guilty and want to start over on your own? So you had to delete everything you’ve done so far, because you wanted to honor Hermann by giving him his life back.

“The thing that doesn’t quite work with it is your family. I’ve met your father, and while he didn’t like you or seem to care a particular amount about you, he acknowledged you as his son, which tells me you’ve implanted memories. You have some sort of psychic or psionic ability and altered their memories, and that’s why you were such a pro in the drift.

“In short, you are an alien with mind-melding powers that developed a conscience and wants a family to remember their dead Hermann and not you. Am I close?” Newton has a giant grin, one that Hermann can’t read. Is he joking? Is he serious? What is he...what can he even do with that?

“Is that supposed to be a joke? I won’t give you another guess.”

Newton just shrugs. “Maybe it’s a joke, maybe it isn’t. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Let me think that my little green man is off to make things right with the family he wronged. That sounds a lot more like the Hermann I love than any other option that came to mind.”

“You’d...prefer if that was the truth?”

“I could understand why you’re leaving if it was true. Really, it’s the only way I can not hate you for leaving or for needing to leave.” Newton looks a little saddened as he said this, but he tries to maintain his grin.

Hermann takes a breath then, trying to match his voice to Newton’s tone. “You got it in one, Newton. My name is Starak from Vulcan. I was on an exploratory mission in your system when I went AWOL. I landed in Germany near the town I claim I was born in. I found that the Gottliebs had lost a son and altered a variety of memories to become that son. I regret these actions now.”

“Nice to meet you, Starak from Vulcan! As the first to know he’s making contact with an alien, I’d like to formally welcome you to planet Earth!” Newton enthusiastically sticks out a hand, as though to initiate a handshake. Hermann, seeing his chance, manipulates the fingers of Newton’s hand to extend the first two only and touches them gently to his own. A surge runs between them and Hermann could feel Newton’s sense of betrayal, loss, longing, fear, love, humor, and a general drunken haze enhancing and blurring each into the next. Hermann tries to project only the raw, open emotion he felt toward Newton’s unprepared psyche, though certainly scaled down. He can see and feel Newton’s surprise as the emotion streamed through the touch.

Just as Newton looks ready to say something acknowledging the veracity behind their joke, Hermann pulls back. “Thank you for your welcome Newton. Newt. That was _ozh'esta t'hy'la_. I may one day see you again. Live long and prosper.” He offers the Vulcan salute, grabs his cane, walks to his bag, and leaves. He does not think back to the human trying to process what just happened.

OoOoO

“Dr. Geiszler?”

“Darla, how long have you worked for me?”

“Two years, sir.”

“And how many times have I asked you to call me Newt?”

“I’ve lost count, sir.”

He sighs heavily. “You’re never going to call me Newt, are you?”

“No, sir. There’s a note for you from a ‘Herman Langbroek.’ It just showed up on my desk when I grabbed some coffee, but he says you knew him from the PPDC. Do you want to look at it?”

“Sure, give it here, Darla.”

OoOoO

“‘Langbroek?’”

“He’s from South Africa. His family died in a fire when he was young. He grew up in the foster care system, but never made much of an impression. He got a degree from NYU and now works as a librarian at the Boston Public Library.”

“You just wanted to keep the same first name.”

“And find a way to Boston.”

“What’s _t’hy’la_?”

“It means soul brother. Soulmate.”

“And _ozh’esta_?”

“It’s...something like a kiss.”

“That’s completely unfair, Herman.”

“I’m...sorry, Newton. I didn’t mean--”

“That means we totally kissed and I didn’t even know!”

“I’m sorry, Newton!”

“Don’t be sorry, you idiot, just kiss me the human way!”

“But...I thought…”

“Shut. Up.”

\--

“Now, explain why I could literally feel you loving me in your weird Vulcan kiss thing.”

“I should probably lead with why I'm here. There's something called the _pon'farr_ and it's very important that we talk about it very soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> kahs-wan: Vulcan rite of passage associated with coming of age. The Vulcan in question is left in Vulcan’s Forge for ten days without food, water or a weapon. The rite occurs at approximately the age of 7 and failure is not considered a disgrace.
> 
> nirak: one who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding; one who acts unwisely on a given occasion
> 
> pon’farr: the blood fever, the time of mating, a biological need to mate that will result in death unless abated by violence, mating, or intense meditation that arises every 7 years in adult Vulcans.


End file.
